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could be immediately taken over by them should Charles IV die, the fernandino conspirators had early in 1807 decided to guarantee the succession of their figurehead by marrying Ferdinand into the Bonaparte family (the fact that the only possible candidates were very junior did not deter them). Secret negotiations were therefore opened with the French ambassador, in the process of which Ferdinand was persuaded to write a letter openly begging for Napoleon’s protection. However, tipped off about the plot, in a dramatic confrontation at the royal palace of El Escorial on 27 October, Charles and Maria Luisa confined the prince to his quarters and ordered an investigation into his affairs. Ferdinand’s papers revealed little more than that he hated Godoy, wanted him imprisoned, and had been in some sort of contact with Napoleon. Rather more suggestive, perhaps, were a series of orders appointing supporters of Ferdinand to key positions in the state, but it is apparent that there was no suggestion that Charles IV should be overthrown - all that Ferdinand wanted to do being to ensure that Godoy did not block his accession to the throne in the event of the king’s death. None the less the king and queen decided that the prince had been plotting their downfall. Bullied into admitting that this had been his aim, Ferdinand was eventually pardoned, but those he named as his collaborators - Escoíquiz, Infantado, Montijo and various others - were arrested and, despite the collapse of an attempt at a show trial, sent into internal exile.

For Godoy all this was a catastrophe. The general (and wholly incorrect) view of the plot was that the whole affair had been an audacious attempt to eliminate Ferdinand, and the banishment of Escoíquiz et al. a monstrous abuse of justice. Perversely, therefore, Ferdinand’s prestige had been boosted still further. As one pamphlet put it:

Neither a mad and unnatural mother such as Maria Luisa, nor a cowardly and talentless adventurer such as Godoy could possibly call into question the estimation which the people felt for Ferdinand. On the contrary, his first appearance in public following his release from detention was a real triumph: all the inhabitants of the towns and villages round about descended on El Escorial and massed to greet him: while many cheered him from a distance, others pressed in close to salute him in person, kiss his hands or his clothes, and assure him that they had never believed the accusation.24

Even more disastrously, the affair convinced Napoleon of either the need for, or the possibility of, intervention over the Spanish throne. The emperor knew that Godoy could not be trusted and was dissatisfied with Spain’s performance as an ally, but had hitherto expressed no intention of taking any hand in her affairs. Yet the idea that she might be transformed into another family monarchy can hardly have been alien to his mind: there had been talk of such a move since at least 1804; meanwhile, anxious for a throne, the dashing Murat was actively promoting the idea. Whatever the truth of the matter, things now started to happen. Charged by Charles IV with complicity in Ferdinand’s plotting, the emperor announced that the prince was under his protection and forbade any mention of France in connection with Ferdinand and his accomplices, and on 13 November ordered the 25,000 men he had been holding in reserve at Bayonne - the Second Corps of Observation of the Gironde - to cross the frontier into northern Spain. Meanwhile, fresh troops - the Corps of Observation of the Ocean Coasts and Division of Observation of the Western Pyrenees - were concentrated at Bordeaux and Saint-Jean-Pied-du-Port under Marshals Moncey and Bessières, and magazines established at Bayonne and Perpignan, strenuous attempts also being made to acquire as much intelligence as possible about Spain’s armed forces, fortresses, roads and political situation. And, for the first time, there appeared a hint of menace in the correspondence of Napoleon with Charles IV:

It is in the interests of the peoples both of Your